


the sea said goodbye to the shore

by bereft_of_frogs



Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [9]
Category: Into the Night (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Season/Series 01, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27335410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bereft_of_frogs/pseuds/bereft_of_frogs
Summary: Grief, and saying goodbye, in the aftermath.
Series: let the human in (whumptober 2020) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993756
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the sea said goodbye to the shore

**Author's Note:**

> written for whumptober 2020, day 19: Broken Hearts (grief, mourning a loved one, survivor's guilt) 
> 
> warnings: none other than the general apocalypse themes
> 
> fic title: 'Sloom', Of Monsters and Men

Relief comes, then the crash.

That’s how it always goes. The pump of adrenalin, the sharped senses as they solved the problems. The acute relief when the crisis had passed. Then the crash as the realization of how close to death they had come set in. As the trauma set it.

On their first two days in the bunker, they sleep like the dead.

They were exhausted. Their sleep schedules had been absolutely wrecked by spending a week circumnavigating the globe, all in the darkness of night. They slept only when they could, sneaking naps between crises. It often felt like it had been one long night unbroken by the passage of one day into the next, only punctuated by the pattern of landing-refuel-takeoff. There was a pattern to life in the bunker, that they’d eventually adapt to, but first they needed to rest, to sleep for as long as they could, and forget for a while that the world had ended.

On the third day, the relief of being able to rest, to no longer have to run for their lives from the sun, turns into the crash. Sylvie slept without dreams for the first two days, then on the third day, when she goes back to sleep after grabbing rations and checking on the others, she has a dream. A nightmare.

In the dream, there is a beeping alarm. It turns from the beeping of the monitors in Henri’s hospital room to the plane’s master alarm, and back. Then the plane is crashing, Henri is crashing, doctors and nurses rushing into his room and pulling her away.

A grave-faced doctor is trying to convince her to sign a DNR.

“Even if we get the plane back flying,” she says. “More systems are only going to fail. The plane probably won’t ever fully regain consciousness. Did you discuss whether or not the plane would want to live hooked up to a ventilator? It might be best to consider letting the plane crash. Letting it go.”

Sylvie opens her mouth to respond. She doesn’t know what to say. Henri had been fine a few weeks ago. They’d never discussed it. Behind the doctor she can see the crash team trying to revive Henri. Pounding on his chest, yelling to each other. But there is no sound from them, only the miming of the resuscitation. The only sound is the whine of the jet engines.

Sylvie closes her eyes. In her stomach, she feels the drop. The drop of horror and shock when Henri had sat her down to tell her the doctor had called with the results. The drop when the plane fell out of the sky after the cabin depressurization - the fastest descent she’d ever experienced. She falls, towards Earth and into despair-

-until she’s woken by a hand on her shoulder.

Mathieu. “They’re letting us take a car back to the plane, to get our personnel affects. I know how important-”

“Thanks.” She sits up, running her hands through her hair to smooth it out. She shakes off her strange dream.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She laughs. “I just had…a really weird dream.” Mathieu nods. “Are you coming?”

He shakes his head. “No. The doctor-”

“Right.” As she looks at him, he still looks pale and tired. He’s got a ways to recovery yet.

“Jakub and Horst will. Maybe Rik.”

“Do they know? About…” She doesn’t want to say it. Doesn’t want to speak it out loud, that she had left Terenzio to die in the daylight.

Mathieu nods. “You did what you had to do, Sylvie. Once we explained the context…they understood.” He sighs. “We all did what we had to do.”

Sylvie nods. She rises and grabs her jacket. “Get some rest.”

“Drive carefully.”

\- - -

Relief. The urn is solid between her hands. She is relieved. For a moment, when they had driven away from the plane and she realized what she had left behind, she had been afraid she would die without him. That she would die and they would be apart, and he would be forgotten in the fucking first class overhead bin on an empty, dead passenger plane. That would have defeated the whole purpose of this doomed trip, if they had died apart.

“Got everything?” Jakub startles her. He has a backpack over one shoulder and Ines’s bag in his hand. “I’m going to go grab some equipment from the hole. Whatever might be helpful.”

“Okay.” The crash. This time into guilt. She had remains to bury, to scatter, to honor. What did the others have? Nothing. They had their loved ones lying to rot where they fell in Belgium. Jakub’s wife had probably died alone and now was lying, putrefying in the poisonous sun. Or they had the cruel uncertainty of wondering whether or not they could have survived, could be out there somewhere. They didn’t have the solid certainty of a body to say goodbye to.

What had she done, to deserve surviving? What had she done to deserve to be able to hold Henri’s remains in her hands? To be able to give him a proper burial one day? The others have nothing, just mourning in emptiness.

She doesn’t know why she’s survived. She had been more or less actively trying to die, before all this started. But she had survived. Maybe she could make it mean something. Like she said to Jakub on the plane. Seeking purpose, one task at a time. One day at a time. The others needed her to survive, so she would.

There wasn’t anything more she could do for the dead.

\- - -

On the way back across the reservoir, she asks to stop. The Polish soldier pulls off to the side and glances back at her. “I can walk the rest of the way.”

Jakub’s brow instantly creases into a worried furrow. “Sylvie…”

“It’s okay. I just need some fresh air.”

“Okay,” he agrees reluctantly. “But if you’re not back in an hour tops, I swear, I’m coming after you again…”

She smiles. “I promise.”

They let her go, and drive off towards the bunker.

At the reservoir, everything is peaceful. It’s a chilly night. The air is crisp and cold. The moonlight reflects off the water. Sylvie walks around the edge until she comes to a quiet piece of shoreline. Then she takes the urn out of her bag. She scoops out a hand full of ashes.

“Well. This isn’t the trip we planned. But it’s what I’ve got.” She takes a deep breath. “This is where we survived.” She lets the wind carry the ashes away. They’re just a faint cloud, contrasted against the moon for a moment, then they’re carried on the breeze towards the trees.

Sylvie dusts off her hands, slides the rest of Henri’s ashes into her pack, and starts back towards the bunker.

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another whumptober prompt fill! Not too much to say about this one, other than it's like...gratuitously angsty and I have no excuses. 
> 
> <3


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